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Feminists

In reply to the discussion: Negging [View all]

zazen

(2,978 posts)
2. I wish I had understood this as a young woman
Fri Mar 9, 2012, 01:16 PM
Mar 2012

We didn't have a name for this 25 years ago, and it took an unusually strong woman to weather the constant stream of hostility from strange men. Even the benign ones did the "why are you so sad? "Why don't you lighten up?" "Why are you here alone?" "Why do you have that pretty head stuck in a book?". . . and those were the nicer ones.

One guy, who kept trying to pick me up with this whole he was an oppressed Native American schtick and I needed to be nice to him because of it, and whom I CALLED on his tactic, then proceeded to suggest in front of group of 20 people that I had blood on the back of my skirt (like, I had period stains). Which was preposterous. But that's how evil these f**kers are. But by then I had learned to get under their skin.

Daughters need to be prepared to understand how predatory men can be, and decent men need to grasp it too. Some of the guys I know now were floored to learn how their fellow men actually behaved with women. Back then, we weren't allowed to talk about harrassment. You were either a whiner or stuck-up (because to complain about predatory attention sounded like braggin) or asking for it.

I'm glad for my daughters' and other women's sakes that it's now much more out in the open.

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